Saturday, September 29, 2012

#OccupyTheODotCo

If you weren't at the first two games of this Mariners series, you are missing some amazing baseball. Last night, this catch by Yoenis Cespedes in the eighth inning to rob Jesus Montero alone was almost worth the price of admission. However, only 16,232 (46.7 percent of capacity) made it out.

Today's game was the 14th walkoff victory. Josh Donaldson's home run to tie it, and by Brandon Moss' home run to win it (below) are all you need to know. Easily one of the best games of the year.

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Only 21,517 saw it. The fans that come are great but when will the stadium really start to get packed?

At this point the team can't do much more to entice you. Tickets are cheap (including a $10 Plaza Level offer for Monday) and the quality of play is great. It's lunacy to say that fans, with a team knocking on the door of the playoffs, are staying away because they don't like the team's ownership. Crowds like Friday's make you wonder if the playoff games will even sell out? If they make it, and they don't, then ownership has more fodder for bringing in the moving vans.

It's well time to #FillTheODotCo.

Albert Who? -- The recent criticism on Twitter of Josh Reddick as he labored through an eventual 0-30 hitless streak before busting out on Wednesday in Texas was astounding considering the value he has brought the team over the course of the year. The new sabermetric gold standard for value is Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Here is a good definition of WAR and how to calculate it. In simplest terms, it determines value -- expressed in additional games a team wins -- by weighing a particular player's contributions over a potential waiver-wire/AAA replacement. WAR looks at the season in the aggregate and so does not give a +1 for a walkoff home run.

Taking a look at this year's WAR rankings according to FanGraphs, Reddick is outperforming quite a few big money players -- including Albert "The Machine" Pujols.